The British Library Philatelic Collections is the national philatelic collection of the United Kingdom with over 8 million items from around the world.[1][2] It was established in 1891 as part of the British Museum Library, later to become the British Library, with the collection of Thomas Tapling. In addition to bequests and continuing donations, the library received consistent deposits by the Crown Agency and has become a primary research collection for British Empire and international history. The collections contain a wide range of artefacts in addition to postage stamps, from newspaper stamps to a press used to print the first British postage stamps.

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A unique block of nine penny stamps from New South Wales, Australia, with an illustration of Sydney, dating from 1850 (August). Part of the Tapling Collection.[3]

The first notable philatelic donation was in 1890 by Hubert Haes of two albums of postage stamps collected by himself and Walter Van Noorden. It was donated with the request that the British Museum library (now the British Library) would create a philatelic collection.[4][5]

The following year the Collections were established with the bequest of the Tapling Collection. The probate value of the Tapling Collection was set at £12,000 but on arrival Richard Garnett (Assistant Keeper of Printed Books) estimated their value at more than £50,000 and described the bequest as the most valuable gift since the Grenville Library[6] in 1847.[7][8]

In 1900 the Crown Agents for the Colonies sent three albums of postage stamps made on their order for colonial governments and then sent specimens of all future stamps commissioned.[9]

In 1913, the Crawford Library was received which forms the cornerstone of the British Library's philatelic literature collection, containing about 4500 works.[10] The Crawford Library was donated by the Earl of Crawford in his Will and was the foremost collection of philatelic books in the world at the time.[11]

In 1944 Mrs A. Cunningham donated her father's collection (Edward Mosley) of African stamps and in 1949 Mrs. Clement Williams donated her late brother's collection (H. L'Estrange Ewen) of railway letter stamps, valued at £10,000.[9][12] After being offered in 1942 but delayed due to the Collections being in secure war storage,[13] in 1951 it was announced that Mrs Augustine Fitzgerald had donated an extensive air mail collection.[14] The Mosley and Fitzgerald collections were valued at the time at £30,000.

The Department of Printed Books had been in charge of the Philatelic Collections by default rather than design. In 1936 there was an unsuccessful proposal to move the Collections to the Department of Prints and Drawings and in 1946 there was a further proposal for the Department of Coins and Medals to take charge. No decision could be agreed and Printed Books continued to manage the Collections until they were passed to the newly formed British Library in 1973.[15]

From 1948, H.R. Holmes had been the curator but in the late 1950s had wished to relinquish the post. A replacement curator was not easily found and the care of the Collections was managed on a part-time basis. A security crisis in 1959 developed after it was discovered that the contents of one of the frames in the Tapling Collection was missing. In 1961 James A. Mackay was recruited as a research assistant to take care of the Collections. In 1971 the police arrested Mackay (promoted to Assistant Keeper in 1965) and charged him with stealing items from the British Museum Philatelic Collections on loan from the Crown Agents. The stolen progressive proofs (test prints of stamp designs) should have been returned to the Crown Agents for destruction and were valued at £7,600. Mackay had exchanged the proofs for Winston Churchill stamps worth £400. He was fined £1,000 and dismissed from the Museum.[16][17][18] As a result of the thefts, security was improved by recruiting Bob Schoolley-West,[19] one of the investigating police officers. The Crown Agents withdrew their agreement for lending new stamps for display in the King's Library.

A permanent exhibit of items from the Collections is on display in the British Library entrance area upper ground floor, which may be the best gallery of diverse classic stamps and philatelic material in the world. Approximately 80,000 items on 6,000 sheets may be viewed in 1,000 display frames; 2,400 sheets are from the Tapling Collection. Other material, which covers the whole world, is available to students and researchers by appointment.[24]

Perkins D cylinder press used for printing the first postage stamps of Great Britain and Ireland, the Penny Black.

As well as these collections, the library actively acquires literature on the subject. This makes the British Library one of the world's leading philatelic research centres.[20]

The archive consists of a range of philatelic and written material which were the Crown Agents' working records. It is the most comprehensive record of British Colonial and Commonwealth issues of the last 100 years.[28]

General Post Office deposit, complying with section 4 of the Public Records Act, being the Universal Postal Union Collection of stamps, comprising 93,448 specimens, covering the period from 1908 onwards including approximately 500 postal administrations.

An important collection of Polish stamps and postal history of 1938-1946 including Lodz ghetto post, underground posts, Warsaw Scout post, Polish Government in Exile material, Prisoner of War mail and Polish Free Forces material.[30]

An archive formed by instruction from the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the 23 April 1890 to all territories under his authority. The intention was to have a record of all Colonial Postage and revenue stamps, postcards, embossed envelopes and newspaper wrappers.[28] The archive was closed in 1992 and transferred to the British Library.

Unissued 1956 £1 Jamaican chocolate and violet, the first stamp designed for Queen Elizabeth II. Held in the British Library Crown Agents Collection.[34]

The Collections include a unique proof sheet of 26 Revenue 1765 Newspaper and Pamphlet one penny impressions showing the registration certificate. These were issued to apply the Stamp Act of 1765 intended to raise taxes to fund the defence of the American Colonies from the French. The tax applied to legal documents, licences, newspapers, pamphlets and almanacs in the American Colonies, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Florida, the Bahamas and the West Indian Islands. The taxes resulted in public protest and rioting. The tax was abandoned after a few months due to its unpopularity but the political damage contributed to the War of Independence in 1775.[35]

The largest object in the British Library is the Perkins D cylinder press developed by Jacob Perkins and patented in 1819. This press was one of several used to print the first postage stamps of Great Britain and Ireland which were issued in 1840. The press was used for printing many early stamps for British Colonial territories from 1853 including for Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Mauritius, St Helena, Trinidad, Western Australia, Ionian Islands, New Brunswick, New South Wales, New Zealand and Victoria.[36]

The cover of the British Library pocket guide Treasures in Focus - Stamps features the 1913 King George V seahorse master dye proof, part of the Harrison Collection. The engraver, J.A.C. Harrison, took proofs during the creation of the die of which this image is one. The engraving was used on the high value stamps 2/6, 5/-, 10/- and £1.[36][38]

The Collections feature these rarities which demonstrate international scope:[39]

^Haes, Hubert (11 January 1890). "The Fiftieth Anniversary Of Penny Postage.". The Times. p. 12. It would be a very fitting celebration of the inauguration of penny postage if stamp collectors throughout the world were to combine in aiding to form a complete collection of stamps and such-like, to be deposited in the British Museum, so that England, where the great boon of penny postage originated, should have a complete record of what other nations have done, following its example... Mr. Walter van Noorden, whose intention it was that his collection of stamps, etc., should ultimately be presented so some museum instead of being broken up, gave me his collection to incorporate with mine, for presentation to the British Museum, to form the beginning of this proposed national collection.

^"Wills and Bequests". The Times. 11 July 1891. p. 4. ...to the Trustees of the British Museum his entire collection of postage stamps and everything belonging to him 'appertaining to the science or hobby of stamp collecting,' upon the condition that the collection is kept in a separate room or part of a room, and is to be called 'The Tapling Collection,' and is always accessible to the president and secretary of the Philatelic Society.

^"Spain: 1851 2 reales blue, error of colour". British Library. 26 March 2009. Retrieved 2011-01-27. Only three copies of the stamp are recorded to have survived and this one was the first to be found. It was subjected to a test for genuineness sometimes made in the nineteenth Century – it was boiled. This treatment removed almost all of the postmark of which only a smudge remains today.